I saw this interesting article over the weekend and wondered how many others had encountered something similar? Despite the ever-increasing number of stories, I don't think it's obvious to either men, or women, that there can be such a difference in treatment. Have you tried walking in someone else's shoes? What was the result?
What an interesting experiment. Although the results are intriguing, I wonder if the findings were also due to the perceived status of the person (ie. being politer because they thought they were dealing with "the boss" rather than dealing with an underling that they feel like they can boss around (as opposed to being politer when dealing with a man than a woman). It would be interesting to know if the same reactions were received when both named parties had the same job title/status within the company, and more interesting still to see if what the conversations were like when the female person's name was recognised as "the boss" and the male name as being more junior.
I've not had anything directly similar to this, but once (at a previous company), I had been working on a book with a number of (male) authors who all worked for the same (legal) company. I had met with them, held teleconferences with them, had coffee and lunch meetings with them, and basically worked with them for the best part of a year (and got on very well). One day, a glossy invitation arrived addressed to my male line manager inviting him to the authors' company's networking golf day. My line manager had only met one or two of them, and only very briefly. He had not worked on their book at all and didn't really know what the book was about, when it was due, who the chapter authors were or any details of the project. He had no interest in golf. I don't know whether the invitation issued to him was due to his job title or his gender. My own invitation was presumably lost in the post...
very good points. I hope someone actually designs such an experiment with many different people in different companies.
It would be interesting to know if the same reactions were received when both named parties had the same job title/status within the company, and more interesting still to see if what the conversations were like when the female person's name was recognised as "the boss" and the male name as being more junior.
